RECYCLED COFFEE STIRRER LAMP from Studio Verissimo

If you are a coffee drinker with a hard-to-kick habit, you are probably all too aware of how many coffee stirrers are wasted at places like Starbucks every single day. Day in and day out, millions of these single-use sticks go straight into the garbage and off to the landfill after a quick 10-second swirl of cream or sugar. You may have even wondered – like we sure have: “Isn’t there something that we can do to get better use out of all these toss-away coffee stirrers?” Well we are happy to report that there finally is answer to the java-waste woes: Portuguese design group Studio Veríssimo has just debuted a gorgeous eco-luxe chandelier that not only provides a glimmer of hope for discarded coffee sticks, but also created quite a stir at the recent Touch | NY exhibition during New York Design Week.

Created from hundreds of recycled plastic coffee stirrers collected in cafes by the resourceful Studio Veríssimo, this eye-catching, sparkly chandelier is more delicate, beautiful, and captivating than crystal – despite its being made from cafe waste. The name of the stunning chandelier is ‘Spoon’ – and while we wouldn’t quite call these little plastic jobbies ‘spoons’, we’ll certainly call the lamp inspired. Most of the coffee stirrers that we see or use in NYC tend to be either wood strips or little black plastic straws, but apparently, the coffee stirrer (or ‘spoon’) of choice in Portugal is made from clear plastic, which obviously lends itself to supreme light refraction and disco-ball-like reflection. Proof indeed that ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’.

Studio Veríssimo is the collaboration of Cláudio Cardoso and Telma Veríssimo, both young and up and coming designers from Portugal. They have exhibited their electic, conceptually driven and design work in Italy, the U.S.A., Japan, and Holland. In addition to finding innovative ways to re-use and recycle throw-away materials, the designers have also set a goal of making people happy and light-filled with their designs. It’s a feel good sort of enterprise all the way around, and if recycling can result in lots of smiles, well then, we are stirred to the core.

In Singapore, we use (wooden) ice-cream sticks for such stirrers, esp in Cafes. Some do use plastic stirrers that looks like super-thin straws. McD and many fast food restaurants still use plastic :( In coffeeshops, reusable (washed) metal and plastic spoons rule.